Am I the only person excited that Christopher J. Priest (the former Jim Owsley) is writing two monthly titles now? He pretty much went into self-imposed exile after the end of "The Crew" and "Captain America and the Falcon" in the early 2000s, but recently returned to write "Deathstroke" for DC and "Inhumans" for Marvel.

One of the reasons I went to NYCC last year was to finally meet him. He was funny and gracious and very surprised that anyone cared who he was. I got him to sign my first four or five BLACK PANTHER's and the first three issues of THE CREW and got a picture. It made my weekend, it really did.

I have to agree that Christopher Priest doesn't mean to me too much as a comic author, because when he was originally working for Marvel, I didn't read too much comics at all and only rarely something else than the X-Men, so I simply don't know him. And when I started reading up on the old comics, I started with the early years, and I'm far away from reaching the early 80s, mainly as I'm not even able to keep up with the new stuff, so my knowledge about those times (other than the X-Men) is sketchy at best.

This said, I just read his Deathstroke series for cross-over reasons and I actually enjoyed it. I didn't like the constant Wintergreen comments about Slade's inability to from family bonds with his kids, because that was so obvious by the story told alone, but apart from that, it was a fun ride, especially when he went toe-to-toe with Superman.

The thing about reading Priest books is that there is a warm-up period. It usually takes him six months or so to really get going, but once he gets going, he's incredible. For instance, Black Panther was good for the first few issues, but was untouchable until about issue #50 or so when Kasper Cole entered the story.

As for Deathstroke, I confess I bought the first few issues on faith, because again, it takes him a few issues to start drawing the threads together. Once he did, however, I was hooked.